Also, a *much* faster way of enabling root access is just typing this:

$ sudo passwd root
Password: mypassword
New Password: newpasswordforroot
New Password: newpasswordforroot
$ su -
Password: newpasswordforroot
# echo 'tada'
tada
#

mac os x users should rest happily knowing that most administrative tasks can be accomplished faster via the terminal. softwareupdate, diskutil, niutil, etc. provide faster access than their graphical counterparts.